It is not a knee-jerk response to a sudden perceived threat.
This whole thing about a black-and-white culture of knee-jerk reactions is reinforced by television.
The knee-jerk cynicism with which it has been greeted is dysfunctional.
Republicans are going to try to paint Bellows as a knee-jerk Democrat who just uses the civil-liberties argument when convenient.
The passage contradicts the knee-jerk reaction which wants to quantify suffering.
Sensibility, the knee-jerk, and plantar phenomena are normal.
Later the affected muscles become exquisitely tender, and then atrophy, while the knee-jerk or other reflex is lost.
The deep reflexes may also be altered, the knee-jerk being frequently absent on the affected side.
In some subjects the larger dose, 45 cubic centimeters, practically abolished the knee-jerk.
The presence or absence of the knee-jerk may be a most significant symptom to the physician.
patellar reflex, neurological phenomenon discovered and named 1876; the figurative use appeared soon after the phrase was coined.
knee jerk n.
See patellar reflex.
modifier
: one more gesture to the knee-jerk hawks in the Congress/ Yet McDonald is no mere knee-jerk critic of the evangelicals
noun
verb
: We need less kneejerking on both sides in these arguments about the environment (1980s+)
[fr the patellar reflex, described as knee jerk by 1876]
